


Kreuz Control

by 7veilsphaedra



Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-04 01:26:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1761769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7veilsphaedra/pseuds/7veilsphaedra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The more assassins try to control things, the more out of control assassins get.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kreuz Control

**i. Get this Straight!**

 

_I. Have. Never. Loved. Aya._

 

Ken barely makes it alive and intact to the bottom of the stairs after his lanky blond teammate barrels past, four steps at a time. As one of his sandals flies off, he hurtles headlong. Only a jujitsu shoulder-roll allows the athlete to come out of the dive upright, uninjured, feet sturdy upon the carpet. “What the hell?” 

From a comfy spot on the sun-room couch, Omi shoots Ken his best shrug and blank-face, “Just barged through like that.”

 

_All my life I’ve longed for something, but not this. Aya just showed up. He isn’t gonna make this real! What I want — what I long for — it’s got a different shape, a different face, a different body. Not a man’s, for starters._

 

The door to Yohji’s apartment slams so hard that windows rattle. Soon after there is the sound of a window being jerked open and a metallic rattle. This sends a clear signal to the occupants of the _Koneko no le Sume_ flower shop and its apartments that he’s climbing onto the fire escape, which can only mean one thing. 

“Here we go again! Smoking, drinking, wallowing. That guy never learns.” 

Ken has no idea why Yohji’s moods fester like splinters under his fingernails. As a fellow killer with personal issues, he guesses he could cut the man some slack. 

Oh, yeah! That’s why they bother him: “He’d better not try to rope me into the deliveries today.”

“As long as he doesn’t bungle the ‘night shift,’ I don’t really care.” Omi’s eyes narrow as he weighs the possibility. Ken recognizes the look, plus the way he resorts to talking in code, as though their work for Weiss was the same as cleaning the storeroom or taking inventory. “He hasn’t messed up on any of them yet--” 

Priorities sorted, the youngest assassin riffles through the pages of a computer design catalogue. Whenever they let Yohji blow off some steam in the past, he’s always straightened himself up in time. A bullet through the brain awaits any member of Weiss who, in all seriousness, betrays them, and each of them knows it. It’s a powerful incentive not to screw up. Every one of them has had breakdowns in the past and most of them have flirted at the edge of this passive suicide, but the time hasn't come to intervene yet. 

Omi would prefer to drop the matter except for that, while Ken’s shorts are bunched up over Yohji, Omi’s the only one now scheduled for a break. They’re all supposed to be on duty in the afternoons, no matter how much Aya thinks he can do everything Entirely by Himself. Omi considers directing a remark at Ken like, “Aren’t you supposed to be picking root balls apart with a chopstick?” 

The mood Ken’s in, he’d probably use the chopstick to pick at something more annoying than bonsai. 

 

_What was with that moment after I uncoiled Birman’s snare? — Like being hit with some kind of electrical shock. I didn’t need to tell him I can never say no to a pretty woman. Why did I feel like I had to explain myself? To him! Stupid, stupid, stupid! I was just trying to introduce myself, to ensure there were no mistaken impressions, right? If the man mattered so much, I should’ve never felt the need to …_

_Rather, I would …_

_That is, I …_

_What am I thinking?_

 

Yohji circles calloused fingers over his temples. 

 

_Strong liquor is called for. In large quantities._

 

“Any chance that a drinking and driving charge might break our cover in the larger scheme of things?” asks Ken. 

“Think about what you’re saying,” Omi opens up a glossy photo of the latest technological gizmo and ogles it like a men’s magazine centerfold.

Of course it means squat; a few passwords, clicks of the mouse and every trace would vanish. Even Yohji knows how to hack into police files. He was probably the one who taught Omi. 

Ken squints at the stairs, weighing his next move.

 

_Why did I have to be the one to find him lying there?_

 

Yohji’s mind wanders across the remembered image of broken terracotta, mounds of potting soil, strewn bulbs, hand-cultivators, wrapping paper … 

 

_… All those little sparkling confetti hearts from the jar that smashed ..._

 

He tries not to think of pale skin, well-proportioned limbs, an orange sweater hiked up to reveal those silky hairs below the navel. 

The air is fresh. Southeasterly winds off the harbour have swept the worst smogs inland, and the rain hasn’t yet lost its coolness. It doesn’t cling to the skin like a clammy, second layer of perspiration. 

Yohji likes this side of the building. Here, it is quiet and the neighbouring tenements cast shade throughout the long afternoons. They swallow the din of traffic and the dazzling light that bombards the huge southeastern-facing windows on the front of their apartments. It all works to soothe his overheated imagination.

 

_Beneath so much swelling, bruising and soil, laced with scratches and cuts, who would ever notice?_

 

Aya's body had looked lean, vulnerable and boyish. Still did. 

 

_Anyone would slip their arms under a person who was lying unconscious like that and haul him off to bed! I certainly grumbled enough about it. (Turned out he was heavier than I thought.)_

 

Ken rushes the stairs and starts banging on the door to his teammate’s suite. 

“Oi, Kudoh, open up!” The thumps and shouts are loud enough to carry past exterior walls. “Before you go on another bender, we need to get something straight.”

 

_The fact that it was my own bed upstairs and not the couch just in the next room has nothing to do with anything._

 

Yohji wants release. His energy is wired up, edgy. Fingers tap a staccato rhythm on his thigh. The toe of his boot pings a counter-rhythm against the iron railing. 

He wants to drink his ass into oblivion. He wants to race the kit car along a stretch of coastline, gambling that there won’t be a truck around the next curve as he swings out to pass someone. He wants to drop some ecstasy and dance with two women at once, rubbing them against his body until they’re all psyched up on pheromones. He wants to take them to a penthouse suite with a hot-tub on the balcony overlooking the Bay so they can howl at the lights and screw all night. Barring that, he wants to find a gang of losers, pick a fight, get the crap beaten out of him. He wants to … He wants to …

 

_Damn you, Aya!_

 

Omi sets down his magazine with a sigh. Preparation for their mission this weekend has frayed all their nerves, cranked every temper up to hair-trigger. He decides to check out the shop as being the likely scene of whatever ‘crime’ set off Yohji and, now, Ken. 

Omi lifts the tiny curtain over the window to the _Koneko_ and peers in. The late afternoon light which shines through the windows is so bright and yellow, it takes a few moments before his eyes adjust to the dust motes and shadows. 

 

_Cigarette, cigarette burning bright,  
In the sex-dreams of the night. _

 

Yohji’s last fling was an English teacher. She taught him Blake’s Tyger verse and, with his high school grasp of the language, he immediately perverted it. She said she hated it, but he remembers how she laughed all the same. 

Usually, just by thinking about her --- or whoever the latest ‘her’ happens to be --- the clench in his chest eases.

For some reason it isn’t working. Not today.

It’s Yohji’s second smoke in just over three minutes. He lights it from the still-smoldering tip of his first, and flicks the spent butt away. It knocks against the bricks of the next building in a shower of sparks, then lands in a weedy puddle left over from the morning’s rainfall where its fire hisses out. He continues to smoke even though his throat hurts and his eyes feel dry. 

 

_The whole purpose of that exercise was in order to tend to those cuts and place cold compresses on those bruises, right? Why put so much meaning around the fact that this took more time than strictly necessary? It isn’t as though this is going to help or fulfil me or get rid of this godforsaken emptiness inside. Aya’s just not that altruistic! The gods sure as hell are laughing at me today._

 

Yohji’s throat is in rough shape. He should butt this cigarette out, except for it would still hurt because the hurting has nothing to do with smoking, and then he wouldn’t have the nicotine to keep his nerves steady.

 

_Fuck you, Aya!_

 

“Gutless bastard,” Ken yells outside his door. “Get your ass out here!” 

Downstairs, Omi shakes his head. He’s noticed how Ken feeds off Yohji’s upsets, getting more worked up as Yohji ignores him. Maybe it’s the soccer mentality, his knack of viewing them each as part of an elusive ideal of a team. Or maybe it’s a genetic throwback to some latent mountain gorilla thing buried somewhere in the Gondwana regions of the brain. When one of Weiss starts to crumble, Ken gets panicky, instinctually survivalist. He reflexively makes up stupid, nonexistent ground rules. 

In one way or another, they all try to control things. Ken comes off like a drill sergeant whipping them all into shape. Aya does the Lone Ranger routine and uses these moments of weakness in the group to ditch the rest of them. Omi struggles with his urge to micromanage the logistics and blow the budget on cool gadgets and, instead, files reports laced with subtle traces of backbiting to their leader, Persia. Yohji … well, Yohji spins out of control. Like right now. 

In Ken’s case, he doesn’t seem to realize that all the yelling and banging is more likely to attract attention than any mishaps involving Yohji and the tiny motorized floral delivery cart. Pitiful thing is little more than a three-wheeled scooter; if Yohji lost enough of his remaining marbles to take it on a drunken joyride, all the dents would end up on the machine. 

None of which helps with the banging and the yelling and the neighbours. Or random passers-by. Or customers.  
Speaking of which, a flash of red lights a corner of the flower shop. Aya. Omi’s eyes zoom in. He’s serving one right now. 

 

_Of course the only reason I woke him up was to make sure that the concussion didn’t turn into something more serious. It had nothing whatsoever to do with a desire to catch those eyes again, or hear the rumble of his voice, or to feel enthralled by the man’s mystery, or other such silliness._

_The warmth that Aya left behind upon my bed, there was no way I ever wanted to …_

 

Yohji slides slowly down onto the landing, until he feels the ridges of the metal against his butt and along the length of his thighs. His head lolls back until he feels it settle against the wall. A stream of smoke pulses from his lips.

 

_There was no way I wanted to slip into that warmth. No way I wanted to roll around in it like a cat. No way I wanted to pretend that it was Aya’s body, and not the mattress I pressed my hips into. No way that lingering trace of musk so intoxicated my sense of smell, I can still detect it with every breath._

_Every. Single. Breath._

_Shit … stupid … hurts!_

 

Omi observes that the dark-haired gaijin whom Aya serves is a very striking sort of man. Tall — taller than Yohji even — lean and broad shouldered, well-groomed and dressed in an elegant, perfectly fitting business suit of fine, rich fabric. His face is chiseled but not harsh. He seems calm and intelligent or, at least, given a cool, intellectual air by a pair of expensive spectacles. He moves gracefully, with signs of strength and endurance in his limbs. Although he is clearly older than any of them, he looks too young to be as successful and accomplished as his appearance indicates. 

In short, he is everything that Yohji isn’t.

And Aya seems to enjoy his attention. At least he isn’t scowling; nor is his jaw tilted up in his usual pugnacious challenge, as he wraps the hand-tied European-style bouquet in a sheath of clear plastic and raffia. The customer says something and Aya shoots him a tight little smile. This is about as close to being doubled-over with laughter as Aya usually gets with customers. He must be feeling positively giddy.

There is something about the man that seems very familiar, but Omi’s memory is so riddled with blank pits and dark passageways, he can only snatch at shadows. He wonders where they could’ve met, whether he has come into the shop before, or whether he is a minor celebrity whose face might’ve appeared on television, in newspapers. There is a flash of something that involved Omi pulling out his shiruken, but it is gone the next moment in a swirl of golden-orange. 

In that moment, Aya looks straight at the window where Omi is watching. They exchange curious, bemused expressions. Yohji’s departure must’ve stirred up more than just Ken. Omi nods in acknowledgement. He steps back and considers.

 

_There has to be some way of quelling these treasonous undercurrents._

 

All Yohji wants to do is scour his mind of any insinuation that he wants to … 

 

_Sift that fine hair through my fingers, drift them across skin, between muscle ridges, drag them up those taut thighs._

 

All he wants to do is strangle every notion that he wants to … 

 

Tangle our tongues together, suck on firm lips, lick lines down his neck and torso. 

 

All he wants to do is obliterate the very idea that he wants to … 

 

_Slip my fingers around his…._

 

“FUCK!” he yells out. All he wants to do is … 

 

_Fuck you, Aya!_

 

All he wants is to… 

 

_FUCK!_

 

All he …

 

_What the FUCK is that godfor-FUCK-ing racket?_

 

He rockets back through the window toward his apartment door.

 

_Fucking Ken!_

 

He throws it open and looms over … 

 

_Bugh nakh Boy!_

 

Ken staggers back in surprise, “Whoa!” 

“What is your problem?” Yohji grits out through clenched teeth.

“Hey, that’s my line, you freakish spider-clone! You nearly knocked me on my ass back there.”

Yohji takes a deep breath. “You got something to say to me, Hidaka? Or is this just a pleasant social call?”

Ken manages to toss him a set of keys from the hand tucked behind his back in one sweeping arch over his shoulder, while flipping him the bird with his other hand. “I’m not your therapist. I’m not your priest. I’m not some plump tit for you to suck on. And I sure as hell am not your replacement!”

Yohji reflexively snatches the keys out of midair and stares. 

“Your turn,” the brown-haired boy explains. “The stuff’s ready now.”

“Wha-hunh?” Yohji looks down stupidly at the keys in his hand. 

 

_Oh right, deliveries!_

 

Deliveries would take him out of the building. 

He wouldn’t have to watch smarmy businessmen with American accents getting all flirtatious and cozy with ordinarily icy co-workers. He wouldn’t have to notice that the less than discreet homosexual undertones hadn’t provoked immediate threats of disembowelment. 

 

_I wouldn’t have to …_

_I wouldn’t …_

_I wou-wo-_

 

Yohji’s breath hitches in his chest, nearly knocks him backwards. 

 

_What was that last bit?_

_Was that Aya pretending for the sake of a customer?_

 

Yohji’s mind flickers back to the scenario of schoolgirls invading their shop, recalls how Aya reacts to them. 

Yohji’s eyes stretch wide, wide open. 

 

_For real?_

_For reality-real?_

_Aya is gay?_

 

**ii. The Pillow Book of Fujimiya Aya**

  
**_Things That Are Golden:_ **

Sunlight reflecting off the sword

Memories: Kyoto, Kinkaku Temple

Keys: brass door keys, deciphered codes, untangled threads, mysteries resolved, keys to hearts

Koi, fellowship

Silence

Saffron in monk’s robes and in desserts

Earrings, secret treasures, pledges, jewels hidden in clasped hands 

Bees, honey, sweetness

Love

~~Locks of hair~~

Ripe quince, bittersweet, vengeance

Attainment, accomplishment, the harvest, ripe wheat

Wisdom, the Enlightened Mind

~~Yohji~~ , ~~Yohji~~ , ~~Yojhi~~  


He takes a deep breath, lifts the brush tip above the mulberry paper, and strokes in the kanji with quick, decisive movements, forming them as perfectly as their meaning. His martial arts teacher, Shion, taught him that calligraphy is an age-old tool to help swordfighters centre. Each brushstroke organizes and impacts space just as the strokes of the katana shift the world around the body. Presumeably.

Trouble is it doesn’t work that well for Aya because he doesn’t really want to be that tranquil or poised. His purpose already keeps him centered in the midst of chaos. It carries him forward to its end result, his enemy’s annihilation. Without it, there is nothing but despair, an abyss of loneliness, a silent, unmoving girl on a hospital bed. He isn’t doing this for the sake of focusing his energy but for the opposite, to overcome a block, a limitation that he can sense but cannot analyze through his usual thoughts, and to do this in safety away from the rage and force of his enemies.

“Things that are Golden: Sunlight reflecting off my katana; Kinkakuji Pavillion; Keys: brass door keys ….” As Aya fills in the columns, random images flash through his mind connected only by the theme of gold.

 

_That series of kata exercises in Shinjuku Park. Evening. Sunset. The flow of maple leaves mimicked the strokes of my sword._

 

Leaves the colour of blood, like streams of blood borne on the wind. 

 

_… Like omens._

 

The sword had redirected beams of light to play in the leaves and shadows, glimmers of golden fire in unexpected places.

 

_The family trip we took to Kyoto. Aya and I were still in school. All those gardens, shrines, palaces: Shūgaku-in, Ninomaru with the floorboards that squeaked like nightingales to stop intruders, Kinkakuji Pavillion._

 

Above its pond, the pavilion’s glowing reflection hovers in his mind, a path of light pointing the way from the watery depths toward heaven. Whenever he wants to feel calm, he pictures himself stepping on that reflection and following it all the way back to the sun. He imagines its heat burning his body away to nothing, not such a bad way to die. 

When the image pops up of Ken tossing him the brass keys to his new apartment, the morning after he arrived at the Koneko, Aya gives his head a shake. He’s supposed to be meditating, centering in the moment, suspending his thoughts, not engaging with the past but he can’t completely help himself. 

Memories disturb him, plague him for attention. Something about them isn’t right. 

 

_The American in the shop this morning._

 

Aya knows his face. It hovers at the fringes of memory. He reaches and it slips away with a mocking laugh and a flash of orange. 

 

_That orange!_

 

Where has he seen it before? Where have he and the American met before? 

“… Deciphered codes, untangled threads, mysteries resolved…” Before he even realizes it, Aya has inked in all this nonsense next to the entry about brass door keys. What do they have to do with golden things? But this is the way of this meditation technique, to move in directions he wouldn’t normally explore, to see where they lead him or if anything useful comes up. 

 

_Things That Are Golden…_

 

A different flash of gold, a different mystery, surges into mind. 

 

_Yohji was strange today. I wonder what his problem was._

 

The words for “keys to the heart” follow those about other mysteries. 

 

_After the Liott mission, Yohji hasn’t been the same. Not since Maki’s death._

 

Aya has always disliked the way Yohji makes such a show to only choose missions which have to do with saving women. He is not exactly sure why. The tiniest splinter of hurt needles him whenever the man reminds him, somewhat like rejection. 

That idea almost makes him laugh. In order for him to feel rejected, there would’ve had to have been some sort of connection to begin with, an attraction, an invitation. It is all too clear that Weiss does not exist for relationships, not even of the filial or collegial sort. 

He thinks of the traditional symbol, a symbol which in life is often golden, and writes the words, “Koi, fellowship, brotherhood.”

No, they count on each other to hold up their end of a cold and bloody business. It is dangerous to let warmth take over the heart, so easy to be betrayed, especially by one’s own misjudgments. 

 

_… Ken and Kase, Omi and his entire family, every last one of them…._

_Enough!_

 

Aya wills himself to concentrate. He must focus his mind. His mind must be still and silent for silence is _golden._

“Silence.” 

For once, Aya’s mind obeys. 

He splashes a little clean water onto the stone mortar, picks up the block of ink and, with smooth circling strokes, grinds it. Clouds of oily black swirl into the water. 

“Saffron monk’s robes …” He likes that image, although it is a foreign one, from India and Nepal. It links together the Buddhist temple floor at Kinkakuji with its Samurai palace floor, emphasizing the sacred nature of the sword. But saffron is also an ingredient. 

“… and in desserts,” he writes and his recollection flies to his sister’s rare visits during his job at the restaurant where he treated her to a parfait, the day he took a break to chat with her and … 

 

_The news came on the television, that news broadcast about our father and the bank scandal._

 

… There had been that same flash of golden-orange. 

 

_That gaijin!_

 

Aya drops the brush and droplets of ink leave spatter marks on the lower half of the page. He reaches down and retrieves the brush, grabs a damp rag and wipes the ink off the bamboo floorboards before it stains. By the time he settles back to finish the column, the memory is lost again. 

 

_When did I become so poor at remembering things?_

 

He knows it’s important. He fishes through the stream of recollection, feels the presence of … things, but catches nothing. 

 

 _Aya-chan and I left for immediately, to learn the truth from my parents, to comfort them. We were rushing up when it … Explosion! There was someone there at the periphery with a detonator._

 

He had almost slain the man who had hired their killers, Reiji Takatori, at Misaya Hikage’s club Fort Lauten during the human chess mission. 

 

_But there were others there with him — someone else at that club, fighting me, protecting Takatori. Who? Can’t remember. It was so clear but I just can’t …_

 

The image starts to coalesce of brown-black hair, fair skin, a pointed chin, an expensive suit and glasses. He hears the rotors of a helicopter, sees their flicker. Orange swirls at the periphery of his inner vision and it is gone.

 

_Why can’t I remember? Exactly who is blanked out here?_

_That golden-orange colour is connected with my sister’s coma._

 

His mind drifts across the image of his sister lying on her hospital bed, her face so white, so untouched by the passage of time. He remembers his promise to keep her safe, to hunt down the ones responsible. He remembers how he sealed his promise to her. 

 

_In blood and bruises and …_

 

Aya writes, “Earrings, secret treasures, pledges, jewels hidden in clasped hands.” 

Then he has to set the brush down again. Shion was right. Calligraphy meditation could be more exhausting than the most rigorous kata, but it was a different sort of exhaustion, a work-out involving something besides his physical body. It has taken all his effort so far and his mind doesn’t want to cooperate. It must linger over his calamitous past, like a tongue drawn to a sore tooth. 

 

_… A sore tooth from cavities; cavities caused by sugar … but not all memories are sore._

 

He is tempted to include the word "memories" in his list of golden things but stops himself. The purpose of the exercise is to catch just the right thread of memory, and naming the exercise for what it is lacks subtlety. 

Subtlety is the swordfighter's greatest weapon. Otherwise, he might as well fight with a poleaxe. Or with Ken's weapons, the tigerclaws.

The most horrible affliction of all would be for Aya to lose his memories. As hurtful as he finds them, they are all he has left.

 

_They are also sweet, like honey._

 

The words pour out onto paper, “Bees, honey, sweetness.” 

From sweetness, Aya writes, “Love.”

 

_What does Yohji expect from those women? That they will show him their gratitude by jumping into bed with him?_

 

Aya snorts with disgust. 

 

_Probably. Enough of them do._

 

The tiny splinter of hurt expands, fills his chest. Except … except …

 

_Then what did Yohji mean by his behaviour in the Koneko this afternoon?_

 

At first, Aya could’ve sworn Yohji had been … 

 

_… Jealous?_

 

But that was …

 

_… Impossible!_

 

The American had looked so familiar, but Aya couldn’t place his face. The moment he walked into the Koneko, however, he had sensed that man’s importance, his connection to the mystery of his father and the explosion. He was still alive for having learned to trust that instinct, so he tried to engage the man in conversation, noticing the way he flattened certain vowels. North American.

 

_What a joke. It’s been so long since I chatted with someone who’s normal, I can’t even make myself sound normal anymore._

 

In the end, it was he who had been chatted up by the customer. How long had he worked there? Did he live in the neighbourhood? What was his favourite flower? Why, roses as opposed to, say, white lilies? --- Well, because white lilies seemed to be more in keeping with his looks, to which Aya replied, “Surfaces belie their depths.” 

The American had found that incredibly funny for some reason. Really, Aya had no idea he was so humorous, or what humour could be found in that decrepit chunk of tombstone. He had felt like a pretentious jerk the second it dropped off his lips. Come to think of it, Yohji was the one who usually peppered his speech with preposterous, silly-assed aphorisms and commentary. Typical flashy stuff, like he was performing on stage. 

 

_Always trying to attract attention, that guy._

 

Of course, Yohji isn’t the one using Samurai meditation techniques. For all he knows about Samurai philosophy, martial art meditations, or even the katana itself, Aya might as well have picked his out as the kiddies’ prize at a boy-day fair. It serves its purpose, but he isn’t quite ready to invest it with its own life the way Shion had. This is a very traditional Japanese affectation, he thinks, remembering back to that family trip to Kyoto, the way his parents had actually bowed to a masterfully crafted vase in an art gallery, imbuing the object with a soul of its own. 

 

_Every time I try to be anything but an ordinary, modern man, I end up making a fool of myself._

 

Strange, how Yohji seemed to grow more and more agitated during that conversation. He wouldn’t move back into the workroom, but hovered off to the side, pretending to dust and tidy and refill buckets, shooting dark looks at the American behind his back. 

The last straw was when the customer had reached across the cash register and stroked one of Aya’s ear-tails off his face, brushing his cheek in the process, to reveal his sister’s golden earring, “Where I come from, when I grew up, a single earring like that meant that a man preferred the company of....” 

Aya knows what he was implying, and if there was any uncertainty in the words, there was no mistaking the meaning of that touch. He has never had a man try to seduce him before, never even considered it. If Aya had trembled at the feel of fingertips sliding so gently across his skin. 

 

_It felt like an electrical current running up my spine._

 

He couldn’t have stopped it. 

 

_So out of my control._

 

It wasn’t as though he could’ve helped it. 

 

_It’s been so long since anyone touched me like that — like a caress._

 

… And, well … 

 

_What a surprise!_

 

His body reacted involuntarily. 

So, it seemed, had Yohji. He hadn’t seen such a blood rage cross the blond assassin’s face since the time they interrupted Scalp from beating Michiro to death. It looked almost as though he was reaching for his watch in reflex when he noticed Aya staring at him, turned on his heel and stormed off. 

“Sorry about that,” the American had said. “I didn’t realize you and he were--”

“We aren’t!” Aya replied, a little too forcefully. “I’m not--”

Aya looks down at his page of Golden Things. Right beneath the word “Love” he has written “Locks of hair.” 

 

_Tch!_

 

He fills his brush with ink and strokes out those words. 

 

_Yohji isn’t the only one with golden hair._

 

Aya stares. That isn’t what he meant. 

 

_Where is this ‘only one’ stuff coming from?_

 

Why does Yohji keep interrupting his thoughts? 

 

_Irritating man!_

 

He gives his head a shake. 

 

_It isn’t as though locks of hair come only in gold._

 

His attempt to find out more about the American failed, no matter what stratagem he employed. The man did not place an order but chose one of the ready-made bouquets, a western design. He politely declined the suggestion to leave a business card. He answered no questions of a personal nature. As he walked out of the Koneko, Aya experienced an uncomfortable prickling sensation, almost as though he’d been had.  
Again, the sound of mocking laughter seemed to linger in his thoughts.

There is a knock on the door. Aya is quite prepared to ignore it and continue with his calligraphy meditation. He feels no compunction to be at the beck and call of others.

“Aya-kun?” He hears the concern in Omi’s voice and changes his mind. There is a mission in the works. As a member of Weiss, his time isn’t really his alone.

Omi’s face betrays worry as he follows Aya into the sparsely furnished suite, kneels on flat cushions strewn over the tatami mats, and watches Aya clean his calligraphy brush.

“I wanted to talk to you about this afternoon.” He begins.

“Yes, I see Yohji spoke with you.” Aya leaps to the wrong conclusion, “So the American has troubled you as well?”

“He was American? I only caught a glimpse of him.” Omi had actually wanted to talk to Aya about Yohji, but this is more important. He readjusts his target, “Where do we know him from? Was it the Creeper mission? My brother’s hunting lodge?”

Aya shakes his head again. “No, I’m sure it was earlier. I never forget an enemy!”

Omi blushes, casts his eyes down to the sweet-scented weave of dried grass above which he sits on his knees. 

“I know,” he admits meekly. “You have no idea how many times I wished I couldn’t.”

Aya’s face softens for a moment. “You are Omi Tsukiyono, not Mamoru Takatori. As long as you never forget that, your memory will not serve you ill.”

Through the open windows, as dusk starts changing the light from golden to purple, a lull in the traffic feels like breath being held. An idea occurs to Omi.

“Since as long as I’ve known you, this forgetfulness has never happened,” he says, “which leads me to suspect some sort of interference.”

“Interference?”

“Hai! An artificially induced amnesia, similar to what happened to me with my father.”

“Caused by--?”

Omi sighs, considers all the possibilities, “Drugs, hypnosis, a concussion —although I can’t really see how that could be controlled — maybe even some particular frequency vibrations similar to those that trigger grand mal seizures. Who knows!”

Aya absorbs this information, but nothing jumps out at him. It all sounds very sci-fi to him. 

“But why would he come into the shop like this? Why would he risk discovery?”

Omi shrugs. “To test it? To see if it worked? — Whatever “it” is, if there even is an “it”.”

The older man’s skepticism erupts with a snort. 

“This is all speculation, right, Aya-kun? Starting from the assumption that we’ve met him before.”

“Where does that lead us?”

“I think we mention our concerns to Persia. If need be, he will put Kritiker on the case, or Crashers. At least he will alert them.”

Aya nods his compliance. He lifts himself off the floor-cushions in one fluid movement and shows Omi to the door. Before the teenager leaves, he turns and asks him one more question. “About Yohji, what did you say to him this afternoon?”

Aya’s eyes narrow, “Nothing.”

Omi says nothing, just continues to look directly in Aya’s eyes.

“Don’t you think he was upset by the American, as we all were?”

“Ah,” Omi clearly sees that it is true. Although he seems to have ideas about what triggered Yohji, he decides that this isn’t the time to address them. “Thankyou and goodnight.”

As Aya closes the door behind him, and returns to the low broad table where his inks, paper and brushes are neatly laid, he feels a curious relief. His mind still seems stretched and hypervigilant, but it feels good that others are being brought in to assess the situation. Kritiker has always proven itself to be thorough and reliable. Crashers has always provided excellent intelligence. Aya can let his mind relax long enough to sink back into the meditation.

He thinks of how he was snared into Weiss, how it has both sheltered and exposed him. He knows more about Takatori than ever, enough to see the grave peril into which he had placed himself and his sister by trying to avenge his parents’ murders all alone; enough to see that it will take inside intelligence, allies and a very clever plan to harvest his revenge; enough to bide his time until his fortitude and training bear fruit. 

Into his mind comes the image of himself as a very young boy playing in the garden plot behind his home. He asks his mother about the bush growing next to the fence which is covered with pear-shaped fruit. She laughs and cautions him not to touch them before they have turned gold. He nibbles on one anyway and his mouth puckers almost unbearably with the fruit’s astringency.

On his list of golden things, Aya writes, “Ripe quince, bittersweet, vengeance.”

Aya knows he shouldn’t indulge too much in the sense of relief he experienced from speaking to Omi. So far Persia has shown himself to be a capable vigilante, hunting only predators. Aya feels no sorrow for having fulfilled the contracts to dispatch them. Of that, Aya writes, “Attainment, accomplishment, the harvest, ripe wheat.”

He wonders what will happen to him after Takatori is crushed, if that same sense of relief will expand to fill his whole existence.

Yet it is also a lure, a trap which could delude him into believing that Kritiker shares his ultimate aims. With his father’s death as an example, he senses how treacherous the ground beneath his feet feels, how betrayals and unforeseen accidents could kill him or sweep him away from his purpose. 

 

_I must keep my mind clear and focused._

_I cannot allow anything to take away my attention._

_I cannot allow myself to be distracted._

 

“Yohji,” he writes and, “Yohji …,” and again, “Yohji.”

He puts the brush down and stares at the page. 

This is the third page of calligraphy he has filled today for this meditation. On the first list of Things That Are Green, he has crossed off the word, “eyes” because not all eyes are green --- only the ones he cannot forget:

  
**_Things That Are Green:_ **

Tea, ceremonies, tradition, respect

Rice flowers

Nature, spirits, forests

Spring, new things, fresh things, innocence, youth 

Joy, happiness

~~Eyes~~

Crickets, leaping, jumping, faith

Bamboo shoots, Undisciplined, untrained

Patinated copper, rot, the grave

Nori

Jade, envy, status, contempt

Kappa, watery, imprecise, emotional

Lotus pads, home

The Goddess

Healing 

On the second list of Things That Are Red, he crossed off the entry, “the Harigane” because it was ridiculous; Yohji’s wire most certainly is not red, except when it cuts into flesh and sets rills of blood coursing down and, even then, every assassin in Weiss has redder weapons than his for actual bloodiness. But “the harigane” followed from “breathlessness,” which was led from “passion,” so there was a progression of thought involved. It isn’t, however, the progress that he sought and, as such, is an interference, an obstacle.

  
**_Things That Are Red:_ **

Action, motion and movement

Impulses, rushing, pulses, beats, rhythm

The heart

Passion, desire, lust, sexuality, breathlessness, ~~the hirigami~~

Blood

Fire

Anger

Power, force, domination

The Emperor

Plans, schemes, strategies, maps

Lips, tongues, speech, cries

Iron Oxide, Warfare

Roses, full-blown, unfurled petals  
Maples

The two previous pages were discarded. He sees the shape of them through the transluscent sides of his wastepaper bin. This is what Aya does with interference.  
He sighs and crumples Things That Are Golden into a loose ball. The mulberry paper is so soft to the touch, almost like cloth. He tosses the list away with the others.

 

_Such pointless exercises. Such futility._

 

**iii. Mission Control**

 

Takatori has escaped by helicopter from the roof again. Since he isn’t the target singled out by Weiss that night, this in itself doesn’t bother Yohji much except that he is always the target for Aya who, true to form, has abandoned their mission to chase him. Omi is stealing data and destroying files elsewhere and Ken guards the teenaged assassin’s back. So Yohji must finish off, not only the target single-handedly, but his three gunmen. 

Not only did their plan fly out the back staircase with Aya so that Yohji must improvise this mass slaughter from scratch, but forget about the element of surprise; Aya took care of that when he rushed out yelling and waving his sword around. Since Yohji’s weapon pretty much depends on stealth, this verges on miracle-working.

At first it’s cat-and-mouse with his adversaries around a maze of office cubicles, yanking furniture about with the wire to divert attention from his real location. There is a shotgun blast and a clatter like hailstones on a metal roof. His heart almost stops when pellets ricochet off a metal cabinet to bounce across the tight weave of his coat. That was close.

As a stalling tactic, he dodges under someone’s desk as though the guards aren’t going to check. They methodically pick their way through the room, kicking over chairs, pulling down shelving units. 

 

_Think! Think! Think!_

 

Two weeks before, Kritiker fished the body of one of their agents at Matsuyoshi-Kleine out of a swamp, eaten from the inside out by eels. 

 

_Okay, stop thinking!_

 

Blood pounds in Yohji’s ears and even his breath feels too conspicuous. A set of boots draw near; their steady, relentless tread hypnotizing him.

Odd, how at a time like this, he recalls an old action-adventure movie from his childhood where someone foils a psychopath by blanking out, like creating a vacuum of nonexistence which the killer’s senses couldn’t detect. 

 

_Movies. Cartoons. Staples of childhood. Had one once, maybe._

 

Under the circumstances, to accommodate the lingering worry that magical thinking might actually work, Yohji makes believe he can blend into shadows, flow silent as fog. So fortified, he prepares to creep away from his hiding place, all the while knowing he’ll probably end up like swiss cheese.

At that moment, the air conditioners kick on, stirring the air and ruffling papers. The guard swivels, strides over to check, and Yohji uses this to slip out the door unseen. Of course he isn’t fog and he isn’t shadow and when the door opens, it audibly changes the air pressure in the room. He hears the shouts behind him and runs like mad.

The next area is set aside for executive offices. The lobby is spacious, tiled in slabs of glossy stone. A fancy parcel-gilt staircase sweeps up to the boardrooms. Art and antiques are hooked onto the walls, suspended from the ceilings, displayed on plinths and, in spite of all this stuff, there is almost no place to hide. When a huge lathed-stone dish explodes from bullet impact next to his face, Yohji catches splinters in his neck and cheek and nearly loses an eye. 

 

_Sunglasses!_

 

A spiderweb of cracks laces the corner of a lens.

He ducks behind a pillar at the top of the staircase and uses his wire to sever some earthquake-proofed rubber and polymer-strand fixtures that attach a massive fused glass tube sculpture to the ceiling, hoping he can manage it in time. He takes out a few and the rest sheer off from the sculpture’s weight, sending a shower of deadly icicles over his first pursuer. The second guard loses his footing on cylindrical shards, catapults backward down the stairs, and knocks his head against the banister.

In the end, however, Yohji is pinned by the last bodyguard’s gunfire behind a marble column. There’s nowhere to go and nothing for his wire to grab. The target babbles over his cellphone for more security, more security, more security.

Yohji has never been much for faith. His internal banter plays at humouring the gods, dueling with ghosts, but it’s never serious. Even his innermost thoughts take on the quality of performance art, presupposing an audience. Now that he’s dancing on the brink of his own extermination, he feels unusually clearheaded and at peace. It surprises him, relieves him. During his short life, it seems he hasn’t lived entirely like an irredeemable bastard after all. Still, there is something unspeakably lonely about the approach of death. He feels that searing ache in his heart that always returns with thoughts of Asuka and the knowledge that no one will miss him as he has mourned her, especially not the intense young partner who abandoned him on this mission.

 

_Aya!_

 

The sound of glass crunkling underfoot heralds the last guard. 

A revelation opens up for Yohji, powerful and clear in his mind. He knows he isn’t going to die that night. He knows he is going to kill the third bodyguard and exactly how he’s going to do it. The entire scenario appears, whole and absolute, within his mind. His part is to simply act it out as though it’s already happened.

 

_Act one, scene one: target loses his head … or regains it … whatever — dashes madly for the exit, something I would also do in his shoes._

 

Yohji uses that loss of his enemy’s focus to leap from behind the pillar. With a shoulder-roll to the banister. 

 

_That should make Hidaka weep with pride._

 

He stands up, topples over the railing, snares his wire on the brass fancywork just next the guard, and swings over so that he’s snugged up against the stairway’s curve. This makes the angle for the guard’s aim too awkward to be effective. 

 

_Ha, missed!_

 

By the time he collects his feet against the wall to hoist himself up the side of the staircase, Yohji has snagged a sharp and pointy piece of broken glass off the risers. He has no idea whether his makeshift dagger will be deflected by the surface tension of the skin, or shatter on impact. Yet somehow it all works without thought. The plan that miraculously downloaded itself into his brain includes sensory information of how to precisely manipulate nerves and muscles, sinews and bones for it to work. Everything connects.

 

_Act one, scene two: Reel up, swing over and slash it across his throat, plunge it beneath the adam’s apple. Sorry bastard doubles over — Argh, bubbles! Did not need to see that — loses his balance. He’s down. Victory!_

 

He leans back and wishes he had time for a smoke, even though he can hardly catch his breath as it is.

 

_Act two … aw, shit! Why can’t the weasel stay put and just let me kill him already?_

 

The target proves surprisingly agile and fast, whereas a stitch cramps the smoker’s sides, unpoisoned oxygen jabs his lungs, and all his bumps and booboos collectively smart. A lot. He has worked up a sweat by the time they tumble through an exterior door onto the top level of the parkade at the side of the building. 

The execution goes off like a lucky accident. He inadvertently trips, tackles the target over the side of the parkade railing and just manages to trigger the wire through the vertical steel bars. It’s a relatively short fall and, without a noose around his throat, the man would’ve survived. 

When the body plumbs the limit of the wire’s extension, Yohji is hurtled across pavement by his own wire, scraping road rash across his exposed midriff. 

 

_Next time leave the coat done up, Kudoh. There’s no one who’s going to be impressed here anyway._

 

Bang! His head slams into the railing and he sprains his wrist. The force nearly pulls Yohji’s arm out of its socket. He reckons he looks worse than the corpse, a gruesome thing to behold, another thing in long list that Yohji never needed to see. 

Now he stands on the parkade roof next to the Matsuyoshi-Kleine building, his mouth stretched into a mirthless grin, his eyes livid. Fingers of sleet mixed with his own blood and sweat trickle down the neck of his coat. 

 

_Sleet, in April!_

 

An icy wind punches at his exposed ear, the one without a receiver in it. 

Aya’s katana lies in pieces on the asphalt at his feet, no doubt due to Aya’s habit of hurling it in a blood-rage at any flying machine which bears this Takatori to safety. Yohji’s own weapon, or at least an important gear in the watch’s mechanism, has been damaged with the target’s demise, which is just as well since he’s a hair’s breadth from using it on his teammate should he make it back alive to their checkpoint.

“Balinese, report.” Omi’s voice brings his receiver to life.

“Target down.” Yohji replies, gathering up Aya’s broken sword and throwing the pieces into the back of their getaway vehicle. “What’s your status, Bombay?”

“Data retrieved. We’re moving out.”

“Copy that. I’m still waiting on Abyssinian.” He swings the door to the staircase open, in anticipation of a late rescue.

“What? You separated? Where is--?” New lights flare in the building. 

“Shit! What just happened?”

“Looks like the secondary alarm system’s been tripped.” Since Weiss targets people who have good reason to avoid the police, the disablement of alarms is selective. Sometimes, the sheer inefficiency of the process means focusing, instead, on quick escapes. They even rehearse their movements beforehand, using stopwatches and, oddly enough, a piano metronome. 

“I thought you disconnected it this time!” Yohji flicks the automatic starter at a black SUV built like an armoured personnel carrier with heavily tinted bullet-proof windows. No one notices blood through such dark glass and the vehicle has a high clearance and steel bars over the front grill in case they have to plough through barriers or leave the road. The engine roars to life. 

“Only the primary system which secures open areas, not the motion-sensitive systems. We didn’t need to go into any of them today, so that means--” there is no need to maintain radio silence within the building any longer. 

“Abyssinian, report!” 

Omi and Ken will leave from the other side on a pair of black motorcross bikes. Police are more likely to respond from their side of the building, so they were set up with something faster and more maneuverable. The bikes are noisy, deliberately so, to draw attention away from the other two. Since their escape route is plotted to thwart helicopter surveillance, they have a pretty good chance of clean getaways. Of course, no one anticipated freezing rain.

“Knocked over an artifact in the executive area,” Aya answers at last. 

Damn! Yohji tries to delicately brush the gravel out of his skin. 

 

 _It’s just like with Maki and that golden monkey head. What the hell was he thinking?_

 

But then, he and the guards wreaked all kinds of havoc amongst the corporate treasures. 

 

_So why didn’t they--?_

 

Yohji remembers the target’s frenzied cellphone calls, “This one’s been set off for nearly a quarter of an hour now. Where are you Abyssinian?”

“I’m in stairwell “ko,” 200 yards from the checkpoint and closing.” 

Yohji finally hears the echo through the cinderblock fire escape several storeys above him. From the rhythm of the footfalls, it sounds like the sword-fighter is leaping his way down the skyscraper, a half-dozen steps at a time. 

“Siberian and I have left the building. We’re at the bikes,” Omi replies. “Meet you at the rendezvous.”

“Copy. Over and out.” Yohji waits until Aya jumps onto the landing just above him, then they pelt the remaining distance to the truck in record time. 

Yohji doesn’t even wait for Aya to slam the passenger door closed before he throws the vehicle into third, shouting in agony as the muscles in his sprained wrist spasm, then second as they practically drift all the way down the spiral ramp. The entrance to the parkade is sealed tight. He takes a run at it anyway, smashing through and then over the sheets of galvanized steel, dragging one piece in a trail of unnatural screeching and sparks for half a block before it finally shakes loose.

They can both hear the approaching sirens now, so Yohji jams the stick into second again, then first, swerves into an alley and disconnects power to the lights with a switch. Once it’s clear they haven’t been spotted, the lights come back on and they calmly stream into the traffic of a busy thoroughfare some eight blocks away.

Yohji pulls out his cellphone and speed-dials Omi. His voice carries a deadly tone of grim as he tells their chief strategist, “We need to lay low for a bit. You and Ken might as well proceed home.”

Aya doesn’t react. Yohji hasn’t looked at him or spoken a word to him since they parted ways at Matsuyoshi-Kleine. He must sense what’s coming. 

A glance at the unusual object in his lap tells Yohji all he needs to know about Abyssinian’s delay.

“New katana, Aya?” His voice is strung as tensely as Omi’s crossbow. 

“Hn.”

And that’s the last sound either of them exchange until Yohji pulls the vehicle to the side of the road somewhere in Saitomo. During the long, silent drive through Tokyo and northeastern Yokohama, the sleet has changed to buckets of rain. Relentless darkness and rhythmic sweep of the windshield wipers has taken the edge off his rage. It still burns white and clear, but it’s backed off from murderous. Still, it won’t take too much from his teammate to tip him over again. 

So, after a few deep breaths, he reaches across into the glove compartment and pulls out the first aid kit and a flashlight. There’s peroxide, bandages, a set of tweezers among other items.

Finally, he speaks. “The least you can do is repair some of the damage.”

For once, Aya does not refuse. Yohji lets his shoulders and neck relax, sinks his head into the backrest as Aya unlatches his seatbelt and attends to him. His hands are unusually gentle and quick. Soon all the shrapnel, buckshot and rock splinters have been dug out, the gouges irrigated with saline, daubed with peroxide and knit together with superglue or butterfly plasters. A tensor bandage is wrapped around his wrist with icepacks from the cooler to keep the swelling down and the sweat and blood cleaned off. Each swab of moist cloth to brush his throat feels like an apology.

“Remove your coat and undo the waistband of your jeans.” Aya orders.

Yohji’s eyes snap open. Oh right, his stomach. “I can manage.” 

“Probably, but it will be awkward, so let me.”

He is about to protest some more, but Aya leans over and snaps the release lever on his seat. The back drops down behind him and suddenly Yohji’s looking at the roof of the vehicle, while his passenger is pushing his clothes out of the way. Aya’s fingers on the top button of his jeans feel especially dangerous.

“It would be better if we had some soap and warm water,” the ersatz medic remarks. He opens the window, reaches over to pools of rainwater collecting on the hood, and soaks a shank of gauze with it. “Hang on. This is going to feel cold.”

Yohji tenses, expecting the worst, but Aya has such a light touch that the dried blood, dirt and bits of sand are soon daubed away, even the places where the sand was driven into the tender flesh beneath the surface of the skin. The sting of peroxide is harder to take than any of these attentions. Soon, Aya is cleaning up scraps and sticking things into a bag for disposal. 

That is when Yohji finally orders him to, “Talk.” 

The redhead has the grace to look ashamed, but it doesn’t satisfy Yohji who responds to the continuing silence with a voice growing more strained and testy by the second, “I’m trying my damnedest here to convince myself not to dump you onto the tender mercies of Persia, so explain yourself. Fast.”

Aya licks his lips. 

“Takatori …,” he says, and, “Takatori … Takatori …,” he keeps saying. The name puts him through even more emotional stress than Yohji’s feeling.

“Yeah, I got the name the minute I heard you shouting it, just before you hightailed after him. Which Takatori? Masufumi? ‘Cos Kritiker’s got evidence which might link him with Freude. Omi nailed Hiru--”

“Reiji. Takatori Reiji murdered my family,” Aya finally spills it, “and implicated — no, _framed_ — my father in a smuggling scandal. My sister … my sister--”

Yohji pulls his smokes out and lights one up. “She’s the one whose name you use?” 

Aya nods. “In a coma at the Magic Bus, the reason I’m in Weiss. Birman said they — Birman promised they would take care of her.”

Yohji snorts. 

 

_Blind fools._

 

He already figured out on the first day that Aya had been unwillingly hooked into this gig. Loyalty and forced compliance weren’t even on the same strata. How could Yohji or the rest of the team expect him to back them up if the guy was being blackmailed into doing these jobs? “Takatori wasn’t part of the plan tonight, Aya, so why’d you dump me?” 

Aya flushes with anger. “For months Kritiker promised me his head on a platter. Months! He’s still alive.”

So that was the way of it. There wasn’t going to be anything worth living for with his prickly teammate until he skewered Takatori.

“In case it’s escaped your notice, we have been picking our way through that family. No point in killing off Rei-chan until we find out who’s backing him, now, is there?”

“That has nothing to do with me.”

“Like hell it doesn’t!” Yohji stubs out the smoke and hurls the butt out the window, leaving it rolled down for fresh air to clear out the fumes. “But it isn’t my job to convince you. There’s more at stake here than your personal vendetta. Other lives.”

“But there’s something else going on,” Aya’s voice is strained with unexpressed frustration. “Some sort of mind-altering thing, which makes us forget. I can’t just place my trust--”

“Oh, for gods’ sakes, you’ve got your promise. That has meaning in Weiss. Practice some patience and use your brains.”

Yohji’s cellphone rings. “Balinese.” 

“Um, yeah, Bombay here,” Omi’s voice is so highly pitched, it can be clearly heard through the vehicle. “Are you and Abyssinian okay?”

“We’re alive. No serious injuries. Why?”

“Are you still being tailed?”

Yohji has to think about that one for a moment before he remembers how he blew off the rendezvous, “No, we shook them off awhile ago.”

“Right! Well, have you ever heard the old saying, the one that goes, “If you don’t want monkeys to steal your saki, don’t leave the bottle under their tree”?”

For about thirty seconds, the only sound that could be heard was rain. Finally, Yohji bit, “What?”

“Any particular reason why you and Abyssinian had to drive 80 kilometers into the country for a heart-to-heart?”

“Hunh?”

“For crying out loud, Yohji, sometimes you’re the densest man alive!” Aya grabs the cellphone. “Abyssinian, here. Copy your message, Bombay, we’re on our way back, or will be very shortly.” 

He mouths the words, “Turn off your wire,” at Yohji, who promptly wakes up and proceeds to dismantle the device.

“Good.” Omi sounds chipper, “So shall I call off the cavalry then?”

“Cavalry?”

“Mmm, Manx and Birman.”

“Please let them know we will give our official report when we return to the Koneko.”

“Okay, that’s fine. But just so you know, the GPS tracker is working just fine and dandy.”

Aya laughs bitterly. “All the careful measures everyone has taken to protect us are very much appreciated.”

“Good to hear that, Abyssinian. See you later then.”

“Later, Bombay.”

As he flipped off the phone and disconnected his own wire, Aya informed Yohji, “Manx and Birman are on their way here to chew us out.”

Yohji doesn’t even notice. “Jeez, Aya, it’s like you think we aren’t your side, as if we want people like Takatori to leave misery and mayhem in their wake.” 

From the mulish expression on the younger man’s face, he wonders if he can say anything to penetrate that stony resolve. “D’you think we chose this … this … ‘career’ out of some cherished childhood fantasy? Think we won’t stand with you when the order to kill Takatori finally comes down? Think we’re going to let the bastard live?”

Aya looks skeptical. 

“What’ll take to convince you? You want another promise? Some kind of assurance that, even if you’re killed, even if the orders from Persia never, ever come, I will carry out this out for you?”

“If I’m dead, I’ll hardly be around to see that you live up to it, will I?” 

“Good one,” Yohji’s smile is just a bit too serene. “I guess you’ve got me all figured out!” 

“You can’t be serious,” Aya’s tone betrays its subtext: a man who whores around like Yohji has no sense of honour worth trusting with blood feuds.

“Left myself wide open for that one, didn’t I?” Yohji twists the keys in the ignition. “Suit yourself.”

“What would you know about it? When have you ever had to carry something like this by yourself?”

“Yeah, you’re right. It isn’t as though I’ve been outnumbered, outgunned and facing down enemies all by myself without backup or support as recently as, say, tonight or anything, is it?”

Aya’s face looks freshly slapped. Yohji’s hand is grasping the stickshift to reverse the vehicle around when the other man puts a hand on his forearm. 

“Let me drive.”

“I can handle it,” Yohji grits.

Aya reaches over and pulls the keys out of the ignition. Anger coils inside Yohji. Aya places a gentle hand on the uninjured side of his face. “You will damage your wrist to the point where it won’t heal properly. Let me do this.”

Yohji doesn’t know whether to throw a punch or concede. Aya steps out of the car, walks over to his door and opens it, moving back to let him out. The battering he fielded that night is taking its toll. He wobbles on his feet and laughs with disbelief. Aya simply reaches out an arm to steady him, and walks him over to the passenger side, holding the door open like he’s some sort of princess. After he swallows his pride and fury long enough to sit down, Aya even buckles up the seatbelt. 

This puts his body in closer proximity to Yohji’s, than the former detective can comfortably assimilate. He holds his breath the entire time Aya leans over. 

Yohji has no words. His thoughts and feelings are so jumbled up, he can’t even spit. Aya doesn’t even think he’s worth proper backup on a mission and Yohji’s so deep in loathing and despair, he can only think in terms of how quickly a bottle of imported scotch, rum or tequila can empty itself down his throat or, even better, how he lost that phial of drugs somewhere in his bedroom last month and it’s got to be there still. 

A woolen rug is pulled from the back of the truck and loosely tucked around him. Aya remains, hovering, hands planted on either side of his shoulders. The red hair looks pitch black in their surroundings but his skin seems to have an eerie glow, even though he is hidden in shadows. Yohji can see directly into his eyes.

“Why did you have to drive all the way out here, anyway?” the swordfighter suddenly asks.

“If I had stopped any sooner, I would’ve had to kill you.” Yohji’s voice sounds so faraway from him, like it isn’t even coming out of his own body. 

Aya moistens his lips. Yohji can’t read what he’s up to, but it looks like he’s coming in for a kiss. Yeah, Aya kissing him has been the stuff of daydreams, yearning and repression as long as he’s known him but, tonight, he doesn’t know if he can take it. After what he’s just been through, after what Aya put him through, it’s too vulnerable, too intense.

Aya does not kiss him, however. Instead he stops about an inch from Yohji’s ear and murmurs, “If you want to kill me, do it tomorrow, after you’ve had a rest.” 

 

**iv. Ace of Clubs**

 

Cram school is so much easier to get to when Omi hasn’t been up all night, riddles coiling around his brain, inchoate fear constricting his lungs. As much as he snips at Yohji for having the low energy of an old man, he could really use some sleep.

Aya and Yohji refuse to talk about how the mission went sideways no matter how much Manx threatens, Birman taunts and cajoles, Ken denies he wants to hear about it, or Omi guilts them with his most quivery eyes. 

The press is blaming the target’s death on the robbery of a valuable artifact, a katana with a provenance dating back to a Meifu era rebel, a katana which is clearly in Aya’s possession now. Breaking into national police files to erase potentially dangerous evidence of Weiss’ existence is one thing, breaking into Interpol’s entirely another.

Yohji is seldom seen, except passed out in strange places like over the workroom utility sink. When Omi does catch sight of a sober Yohji, rare as a three-legged raven, he seems lost and sad. 

Aya has closed so far into himself, he’s beyond reach. 

Everyone is so polite and, yes, kind but no one freely laughs or chats anymore and every word, every movement, every smile has restraint tagged all over it. From the little Omi had caught, betrayal is at the heart of this. As he throws slices of raw vegetables and leftover omelet with fish into his bento, he wonders what sort of betrayal? 

What could be this bad? 

He wants to scream. He wants to kick their grownup butts, especially since they have their heads buried so deeply up them. He wants to pass his geometry exam tomorrow although vectors are giving him trouble, something he thought would be a snap after the convolutions he worked out in order to rescue those kidnapped children. He wants to have a hot, tasty homemade meal at least once this week; the fish smell is getting so … so … _ripe_ whenever that bento’s cracked open. He wants to have a real date with a real girl like a real teenaged boy and find out what all the fuss is about. 

Ouka mentioned a movie, but some orange-haired German is stalking her lately, and the remarks he tosses with such deliberate carelessness to Omi indicate this foreigner knows about Weiss and plans on telling Ouka all about his murderous side-career. It creeps Omi out. Who is this guy? And where does Omi know him from? How does the German know them? Or does he really know them? Or is he playing some sort of fucked up head game because he figured out Omi has secrets and took a wild guess which just happened to be dead right? How can someone guess so exactly right? Did someone in Kritiker or Crashers betray them? He has to know! Omi wishes he could talk to either Aya or Yohji like he used to, but he can’t because No. One’s. Talking.

He’s furious at Persia for hiding the truth about Mamoru Takatori, why he was assigned missions to kill his own brothers, and why his own father, Reiji, never paid out the ransom when he was kidnapped. He has demanded that Manx set up a meeting so he can confront Kritiker’s lead operative.

To top it all off, the mystery of the well-dressed American customer still hasn’t been resolved, not that this surprises Omi. Kritiker only has hunches and vague descriptions. From experience, Omi has learned to trust these crawly sensations, but it doesn’t put an investigation together.

As Omi pulls on his bike gear, late for school as usual, Ken and Aya are opening the shop, rolling up the metal barricade. 

The first glimpses at the world they catch this morning are of Yohji’s golden locks and long limbs spilled in all their stained, tousled glory through the door of his Lotus and onto the curb. Two striking women share the one passenger seat, one babbling nonsense, the other doubled over with laughter. 

Ken’s exact words, as he disappears into the workroom, are directed at Aya, “You broke him, you fix him.”  
Omi turns in confusion and dismay.

“What does he mean by that?” Aya surges into full fighting posture.

“I’m sure Ken means nothing,” Omi finds himself back in the tiresome and laborious role of mediating between crossed tempers.

“Don’t give me that! I want to know--”

“Fine, he’s referring to the last mission, but, Aya, before you go off confronting Ken, any chance we can look after Yohji first?” Omi’s eyes almost spin with the psychic vortex of his unspoken pleas, although, usually, Aya is impervious.

“Turn the garden hose on the drunkard!” 

“Is that the best way to deal with this?” Omi can almost hear the gears grind in Aya’s head all the way back to the morning he’d been unconscious, stretched across a floor, in need of a bed — when Yohji did not do that to him.  
With a pissy sigh, Aya caves. 

Omi is careful not to let his smugness show. He is in the right, after all. 

 

_He’s lucky he hasn’t been picked up by a patrolcar._

 

The man, laid out like an offering, sets off curious pangs in Aya. 

 

_He’s lucky to have made it home alive, without killing anyone._

 

Aya thinks Yohji has thrown his gauntlet in the face of death so often that fate extracts its blood out of his happiness.

One of the women, the one who laughed too loudly, has a digital camera and is trying to hold it straight enough to take pictures of Yohji. When she spots Aya’s glare, she sets the camera down on the driver’s seat just beneath the steering wheel, digs an elbow into her friend’s side, “Hey … hey, look!” Then, she sallies with a flirtatious, “Hello, gorgeous, care to join us?”

Aya walks over to the car, pulls the keys out of the ignition and pockets them. As he leans over Yohji, the lanky blond mumbles something and flails a leg, as though trying to straighten out unruly bedding. This knocks the camera off the seat. When it bumps to the ground, its display feature is automatically re-engaged.

Aya picks it up to hand it back to the woman. He freezes and his breath catches in his chest when he sees what the pictures reveal: Yohji, in various states of undress and dishevelment, sprawled in provocative poses, surrounded by a collection of African sculptures. These are fetish sculptures, whose human characteristics are marked only by the crudest representation, little more than stick figures ….

The laughing woman gives a low, evil chuckle. 

…And, on all of them, a huge erect penis. Something about the sculptures twists in Aya’s gut, the way they’ve been deliberately carved to eliminate any distinctive feature but those massive hard-ons, animalistic, driven by an instinctual compulsion for sex; and the way they’ve been arranged in a semi-circle around Yohji, those huge and inhuman, upright cocks poised to defile, to violate. The half-smiling languor of Yohji’s mouth, the unnaturally enlarged pupils of his green eyes, the loll of his head and bolstered or bound arrangement of his limbs tell how out of it he was at the time — drunken, drugged, semi-conscious. Aya’s heart gives another spasm for, as long as his eyes were open, the man still bore a sweet and strangely feminine expression, receptive, willing, loving, trusting … aroused. 

In that instant, every sensation, every feeling, every aspect of his awareness surges into Aya’s groin. It feels so primal, ecstatic and — Aya’s neck snaps back — so very wrong. With one picture, he’s been reduced to a fetish sculpture, a wooden doll, humanity wiped away, replaced by primordial instinct.

The women have stopped laughing. Aya throws them a quick glance. The younger one looks disturbed, ashamed, and a little fearful. The other woman just looks defiant and stiffening for a fight. Aya narrows his eyes, his battle instincts at the ready. He continues to cycle through the database of photographs, his mood growing ever more grim, his eyes darkening steadily, each exhale slower, more forceful — as with each picture, Yohji becomes more naked, more debauched. In the last shot, Yohji is completely exposed, arms secured above his head and legs stretched and held open with scarves bound around his knees . His eyes are shut. His lips lie wet, loose and open. He is clearly unconscious.

Aya slides the camera into the pocket of his jeans, where he hears it scrape against the keys to the Seven. He hoists Yohji over one shoulder in a fireman’s hold and starts dragging him into the Koneko.

The woman launches herself at him, “Give it back!”

The shop-window’s reflects her movements and, at the very last moment, he deftly pivots so that she lands on her hands and knees. Before she collects herself, he’s through the Koneko’s doorway, and Omi is sliding the metal shutter closed behind him. He hears the latch click as she throws herself against it, pounding her fists, shrieking wild accusations. 

Omi hovers, fluttering like a hen. 

“Just get to school,” he is told. “I’ll take care of Balinese.”

“When you say “take care”--?” 

Aya’s spine goes rigid. With a deep breath, he masters his resentment. “Go to school. I promise I will do my best.”

“Hai!” Omi leaves out the back door.

 

“Yohji!” A deep male voice penetrates through the stomach-churning whirl of disconnected dream imagery. “Yohji, you have to get up now.”

This isn’t another dream. Fighting off the paralysis of sleep, Yohji forces his eyelids to open. Pain shoots through his skull. Protest rumbles through his chest.

“Yohji, you have to go back to your own bed, your own apartment.”

 

_What?_

 

This time, his eyes fly open for real. From the wine-coloured tinge floating in front of him, he figures he’s on Aya’s futon. And this voice matches the smooth bass of the swordfighter’s voice. 

_“Hey, Aya, what am I doing in your bed?”_

Somehow the second thought slips past his lips.

“Because I couldn’t pull the keys to your apartment out of my jeans pocket without dropping you on your head.” 

“My apartment isn’t locked. I never lock it.” Lately, the only time he uses it is to shower and change clothes. 

He’d like to say he’s been having fun, fun, fun all the times he’s spent out of it, but he can’t remember. He recalls flashes of different dance floors, anonymous faces, lasers and strobes flickering across smoky ceilings, fragments of fascinating live acts, roulette tables, poker tables. That probably means he paid way too much for drinks again. And if gambling was involved while he was that inebriated, does he even have a bank account left? And his ears buzz like he spent too much time directly in front of loudspeakers somewhere.  
Aya doesn’t even look startled. Nothing fazes him. “I didn’t know that or I would’ve let you sleep it off in your own bed.”

“I see,” Yohji slowly pulls up, but his stomach heaves so violently in protest, he has to sink back. The room is charged with a sense of dejá-vu and irony. 

From the watering of his mouth, he figures he won’t make it to the bathroom in time. “You wouldn’t happen to have a clean bucket nearby? As in, right now?” 

Aya grabs a wastepaper basket, dumps a couple of sheets of paper with kanji inked all over them onto the mat, and passes it over. While the other man leans over the side of the futon to finish his business, he suddenly asks, “Why not?”

“Mmmph?” 

“Why don’t you lock up your rooms?” Aya fills up a glass with cool water from the ensuite bathroom sink and brings it over.

Yohji picks up one of the pieces of paper and, since its texture is surprisingly fluffy, wipes his mouth with it, then downs the water. Why didn’t he? While Aya flushes out the bucket and fetches him another glass of water, he says, “Strange, isn’t it? We kill people without a second thought, but none of us would think of stealing from each other. That’s just a weird mash-up of morals.” 

But it wasn’t really. No one would be stupid enough to break faith with the people he depended on for his life. Well, nobody except Aya. 

Yohji shrugs, “Not that I have anything worth stealing.”

“Kudoh, you collect almost as many gadgets as Omi. Anyone could wander in off the street and help themselves.”

“Don’t care, as long as they leave my books alone. Anyway, newsflash: nobody but us can wander into this building. Ever try?”

The answer’s so plain that Aya doesn’t even grace him with a reply.

“Kritiker pays good money to keep this place safe,” The weariness of the world constricts in Yohji’s throat.

Aya’s chest has a little spasm. “About the mission, I am sorry.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” This time Yohji actually manages to sit up and swing his feet off the bed. “I got your little … um, apology gift-thing.”

The small, tastefully wrapped package had sat by his door for a day before he decided not to let it get kicked around by Ken and finally scooped it off the floor. Since then it had sat on his clothes chest. “Still haven’t opened it.”

Aya shakes his head. “It won’t be any good now. You could’ve just eaten the thing even if you didn’t want to accept the apology.”

“Eaten?”

“For goodness sake, it’s one of those cakes you like so much from the Vienna bakery. The type you buy for your dates so you can sit there and watch them devour the stuff. I’ve seen you. Anyway, it’s gone off by now.” Aya rolls his eyes. “Cream doesn’t keep.”

“Trust you to give me an apology gift with a past-due date.” 

“I didn’t know what to get you, a guy who’s just said he values nothing of his own enough to bar his apartment from outsiders.”

Yohji stares at him quietly for a long time. Sometimes, there is something so acutely perceptive about his looks that they make the younger man want to squirm, like he can see straight into a person’s heart. They sit so close to each other that their knees almost touch and there’s something so open and forthright about this, Aya can’t figure out why his heart keeps skipping beats.

“I value all the usual things,” Yohji finally says. “You know, friendship, making love to a beautiful woman, family and kids, partners and teammates?”

Aya blushes. 

“I didn’t open your gift, not because I was sulking,” Yohji closes his eyes and runs fingers through his wavy hair. “I haven’t been nursing resentment.”

“I know.”

“You do?” Genuine surprise fills the older man’s voice, almost as though he hasn’t quite succeeded in convincing himself.

“I figured if you couldn’t forgive me, you wouldn’t talk to me,” Aya’s the king of grudges, so he should know. “You must’ve been — no, you must _be_ furious with me.”

“Well, that’s the funny thing about it, because I wasn’t — I’m _not_ furious at all.” He forestalls the skeptical look on the other’s face, “Oh, the night it happened, yeah, definitely back then, but you told me your reasons. Once I got over myself, I got it. If it had been my family, my sister, I wouldn’t have been able to hold back either, not while the man responsible for killing them was still alive.”

“Yohji--” Aya’s voice is humbled and quiet but he wants to stop Yohji from these painful words. His words rush to fill in the silence.

“No, let me say this. Let me finish. I didn’t open your gift because I figured you don’t owe me anything, no explanation, certainly not an apology. Yeah, you left me in a tight spot, but I survived so I guess it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. When the time comes to cut Takatori down, I want to be there.”

Aya stiffens. The words don’t sit right. The younger assassin sits on his knees, head bowed as thoughts flit across his face, “If you continue to live this way, what with all the drinking, and drugs, and the pariah along for the ride, you’ll never make it. You know that, don’t you?”

“How close did I come today?” Yohji sighs, meaning how near to his apartment did he manage to crawl before passing out. The day before, he had come to on the common room couch, sun full on his face, baking his skin. Aya’s suite is easy on the eyes, not only because it’s shaded with fitted shoji screens over the windows, but also because it’s simply furnished. 

Aya assumes he’s asking how close he came to alcohol poisoning. “Are you trying to die?”

There’s a moment or two of silence until the crossed wires reconnect. “Maybe. It wouldn’t be such a bad way to go. Beats being tortured to death by criminals, no?” 

He reaches over and cups Aya’s hand in his, soft, coaxing, seductive. 

Aya rockets to his feet, snatches his hand away like Yohji is made out of napalm. “No! Shit, I thought you were smarter than that. Don’t you know that when you implode, everything else around you falls apart?” 

“Do you, Aya--?” Yohji asks softly, trying to ignore the sight of Aya’s haunches as he lunges across his low, square, highly polished table and grabs a camera. “Do you fall apart?”

The redhead isn’t paying attention. There is a slight rose tinge to his face when he fiddles with the buttons. 

 

_This is bad._

 

Yohji feels his stomach bottom out. Whatever that camera reveals is enough to make Aya handle it like a cobra poised to strike. 

 

_Oh, this is very bad._

 

“I confiscated this from your girlfriends this morning.”

His eyes freeze on the first image.

“There’s more,” Aya gives a little circling wave of his finger.

The pictures are — raunchy, rude, and degrading — but not quite as bad as he feared. Relief mixes in with a host of other feelings. From the looks of it, he was drugged when they trussed him up, but still, “I thought, for a moment, it was going to be a video-clip of me being gang-raped.” 

Aya’s face reflects so much shock that Yohji laughs. 

“Don’t be so uptight, Ayan! You’re more upset than me. So some girls want to keep a souvenir of our date; why should that bother me? As looks go, it isn’t my best,” he puts a teasing note in his voice, “For all their pains they got the low-rent version.”

The red-head isn’t laughing.

“Aw, c’mon, didn’t the naughty pictures make you want to do me? Just a little?” 

Aya’s eyes narrow, dangerously. “You think I would find that sexy?”

“No, of course not, I just thought—I just thought--” 

 

_What did I think?_

 

“You thought I would get off watching you being raped?”

Yohji dissipates into bone-crushing weariness. His eyes scan the room, noticing the spare surfaces, meticulously clean except for the crumpled paper balls dumped onto the woven grass mats, how nothing but the most essential functions are allowed to interrupt. It is so unlike his room, with its riot of colours, textures, and perfumes. 

“I just thought I would try to lighten up the situation a little, seeing as there’s nothing I can do about it, seeing as it’s in the past.” 

He notices there are no books to be seen anywhere, although he knows Aya buys them regularly. When Yohji reads a book, it gets dog-eared, marked up, dissected, savoured and shelved for future reference. Aya disposes of books when he’s through, as though any ideas which haven’t left a first significant impression aren’t worth remembering.

“We don’t know that you weren’t — they might’ve — they could’ve--” Aya falls silent. He looks flustered by the curious look that Yohji directs at him and, as he speaks, his voice grows more stressed, more clipped, “I should drive you to the hospital to get blood work done. We should see what they drugged you with or if they infected you.”

Yohji’s on a different wave-length. Aya watches as his expressions shift from despair and resignation, to surprise and, finally, a truly breathtaking smile, like the sun just came out. Aya wonders at the thumping in his chest, wonders that, if this is Kudoh ill with a hangover, how beautiful is he when at his most dazzling, most seductive? 

He also wonders if the man is still high. Here he’s just insulted him. Repeatedly. And he’s smiling like he won the sweepstakes. Confounded doesn’t begin to describe Aya’s state of mind. “How can you let this just roll off? How can you let yourself get that drunk?”

Before he frames his answer, Yohji notices something else. While paintings, drawings, and exhibition posters cover his own walls, each a small world drawing the viewer into its own unique narrative, Aya’s are adorned with nothing except the brackets which hold his katana and a shelf upon which sits a beautiful raku tea set, well-used, and an ikebana. This room is about silence, stillness, and disengaging the mind, not exalting the imagination and stimulating creativity like Yohji’s. This is the room of someone who strives to overmaster chaos by sheer willpower, not encompass and embrace it by jumping in headlong. This doesn’t surprise Yohji.

“No one’s lying in a hospital bed waiting for me.” Yohji’s insight jumps out of his mouth before he considers how it will go over. 

Outrage sweeps across Aya’s face. 

“Don’t take it that way! What I meant to say is,” Yohji stirs, getting ready to leave the room again, “this is what living looks like when there isn’t anyone to live for. Pointless and stupid.”

“Right. I got that. Now, I have something to say to you, because I’m already bound to a promise lying on that hospital bed which uses up every last bit of my strength. There’s nothing to spare for clean-up on Kudoh. I don’t want your mess. I don’t want your hollow core. I don’t want your slop spilling over me.”

“Damn, Aya, that’s just cold and, for the record, I never asked you to look after me.” 

“No? You make me these casual vows, meaningless promises — what’s that about then? Oh, sure, you mean it when you make them, but how the hell do you think you can handle Takatori when you let your guard down like that?”

“Just like I did it before you came along and just like I will continue to do it after you’ve turned back into stardust, but thanks for caring.” 

“Did you even _hear_ what I said?”

“Stop! Stop. Okay, I got it. Out-of-control Kudoh is getting a little too out there.” When Yohji finally makes it to his feet, he’s still woozy and lightheaded. It takes him a minute for his head to stop whirling, but when it settles, he remembers that Aya did take care of him that day. He didn’t leave him passed out wherever, “Listen to this existential crap. Ignore me. I’m whining.”

The soft piece of paper he used to wipe his mouth has fallen from his lap. He reaches down to pick it up and throw it back in the wastepaper basket when a symbol grabs his attention, “What the--?”

Quickly, his eyes skim over the list:

_**Things that are Red:** _

_Action, motion and movement_  
Impulses, rushing, pulses, beats, rhythm  
Blood  
The heart  
Passion, desire, lust, sexuality, breathlessness, ~~the harigane~~  
Fire  
Anger  
Power, force, domination  
The Emperor,  
Plans, schemes, strategies, maps  
Lips, tongues, speech, cries  
Iron Oxide, Warfare  
Roses, full-blown, unfurled petals  
Maples 

“What is this?”

Aya’s face turns pink with embarrassment. “It’s a meditation technique my sword-teacher recommended. Sort of an automatic writing exercise. I start with a word or a theme and write down everything that I associate with it, and see where it takes me.”

“You associate the harigane with desire and sex?” It was too precious. After being well and truly squelched, fresh fires leap in Yohji’s chest. So he wasn’t entirely out of the picture after all. “That’s … kinky.”

Aya stammers at the undercurrent of amusement in Yohji’s voice, “W-with a lack of breath, actually, since it takes the breath away.”

“Oh, I see. Not some weird perversion about being strangled?”

Aya snorts. 

“Guess not. And the point of this exercise is?”

“I had been having trouble remembering an old enemy. I thought the meditation might help stir something up.”

“Has it?” Yohji picks up the two other crumpled up balls of paper, “Stirred things up?”

“No,” Aya’s shoulders sag in defeat, “Omi figures there’s been some outside interference, like drugs or hypnosis.”

“What makes you think — how would you even know? If you’ve been interfered with, I mean, how would you begin to suspect?” 

“The day of our last mission, there was a customer. I could’ve sworn I met him before. His face was so familiar. But everytime I started to remember the circumstances, there’s been a burst of orange, like flames, and then my train of thought vanishes. Omi had a look at him, too, and experienced the same thing. Even you were agitated by him. Remember? The American?”

Yohji’s back stiffens. “The one who was all over you?”

“No, he wasn’t. But, yes, that’s the one.”

Yohji has to laugh at Aya’s odd mixture of denial and agreement. “I know I’ve never seen him before.”

He smoothes open another wad of paper and starts to read it, pausing only when Aya says, “But you were so upset. If you’ve never seen him--”

“Of course, I was. The man practically had you bent over the counter. Perhaps he just seems familiar because he was being overly familiar.”

“But — but Yohji, why would that upset you?”

“Hmm?” Yohji’s mind is occupied elsewhere. Absentmindedly, he looks up from the two pieces of mulberry paper that Aya used for his calligraphy meditation. Not that he’s reading them anyway. He’s been thinking about the burst of colour, “Orange, you say?”

“Yes, but why does it matter if a stranger finds me attractive?”

The colour triggers something for Yohji. He knows the exact shade that Aya describes. It isn’t muted and burnt like the old sweater he’s so fond of, but vivid and almost wild like the tiger-lilies they use in summer bouquets.  
While he thinks, he folds up the calligraphy and shoves it in his pocket.

“Is it because he’s a man?” Aya’s voice is unusually gentle and soft, which makes Yohji want to listen — oh yes, to listen and pay the closest, most rapt attention — but he’s trying to remember where he saw that colour. It was so recent. “Do you have something you want to tell me, Yohji?”

“You say that whenever you’re just about to remember how you know this American fellow,” Yohji finally speaks, “there’s a flash of fire, and you lose track of your thoughts?”

“Not so much a flame, but coloured orange, like fire.”

“Could it be the colour of hair?” 

A peculiar shiver runs up Aya’s spine. 

“It isn’t that common a tint of hair-colour, is it? Makes him kind of easy to notice, not to mention remember, because there’s this orange-haired stranger that I’ve seen leaning on a parked car near the store lately, and I knew he seemed familiar, but I couldn’t remember from where. Yet none of us could, so it has to be what Omi says, that there’s some sort of interference.

“Jeez, Aya, are you going to be alright? You look like you’re about ready to pass out.”

Aya swallows hard. When he closes his eyes, white stars appear behind his eyelids.

“We’ve all forgotten how Takatori Hirofumi escaped when we rescued Omi,” Yohji says. “The orange-haired man who jumped in front of him and dodged us all so quickly and effortlessly; he was never where we thought he was. Don’t you remember how he confused us all?”

“Yes,” Aya’s face drains of all colour. “That last mission, the American … he was there.”

A finger of ice traces the length of Yohji’s spine.

“And he was at the Fort Laufen casino, too. How could I forget this?”

Yohji mobilizes, suddenly clearheaded, the aches and abuse of his body vanishing like steam off a mirror. “We need to tell Omi.”

 

Instead, Ken sits at the mission room computer, fuming over an obvious photo-manipulation of Omi and Reiji Takatori together and an email which proclaims they’re in cahoots to destroy Weiss. There’s an invitation to find the proof in Shinjuku Park that evening, a thinly veiled trap, not that their secret foe has to disguise it. They all know the only bait he needed was to call them by name. The rest is just about needling them, rattling their chains. Except Omi’s gone and, with a sickly feeling, they all suspect he’s in danger.

By the time Weiss returns that evening, Ouka’s been shot to death and Omi’s heavily sedated under observation at the Magic Bus. There’s no doubt in their minds that this orange-haired German bastard’s been playing with their heads, and Yohji’s pretty sure he knows how.

 

**iv (Final): Mind Control**

 

“Are you out here?” A deep voice interrupts Yohji’s reverie. It’s three o’clock in the morning and cold as hell under the clear April sky, but everyone left at the Koneko is wide awake. Yohji still wears his mission apparel. He sits stretched across his favourite perch, smoking, squinting at the few stars whose light penetrates Tokyo’s formidable photo-barrier, and sifting through the details of that evening’s disasters. 

“Aya,” he murmurs, shifting over so the other man has room to join him. “Did Ken find anything?”

Before Manx arrived on the scene with the cleanup detail and whisked Omi off to the hospital, the hysterical teenager had let slip details about his confrontation with Persia after school. This is when the remaining members of Weiss were stunned to learn about a shadow organization called ‘Eszett’. 

“We shut it down when the spyware warnings started to flash,” Aya climbs out the window onto the fire escape, the metal ringing softly under his boots like the strings of Koto. “All we traced were a couple of front pages for some exclusive private schools.”

Nothing could stop Ken or Aya from attempting to fish further details out of cyberspace when they got back. By the time Yohji left the mission room to have his smoke, Aya was throwing out suggestions over the athlete’s shoulder to refine the search parameters.

“Schools?” Yohji scowls. “As in primary, middle--?” 

“That’s right, private academies for gifted students. Although lists of funding sources for various scientific research programs also popped up, the name Eszett wasn’t directly or publicly connected to them. When we tried to chase down the associated names, titles and projects, all we found was the odd logo on advertisements for experimental test subjects posted on different university bulletin board services. If there is a connection, it sounds like very spooky — neurological, genetic and pharmaceutical experiments — Allan Institute stuff from back in the ’60s, only worse.”

“Private academies,” Yohji repeats, “and you say that Omi’s special spyware blockers kicked in?”

“Yes, we bounced the signal off over a dozen disassociated relay stations and satellites, too,” the two assassins exchange meaningful looks, and Yohji lets out a little grunt.

“Did they manage to--?”

“Shot them down somewhere.”

“Pretty fancy infiltration programs for nothing but schools,” Yohji says, even though he doesn’t have to. “If we’re lucky, maybe they’ll think we’re an aircraft carrier.”

There are lots of things Yohji doesn’t have to say. He doesn’t have to mention that his hot-tempered team-mate has already contradicted his own resolution by coming out to check on him, since he already knows Aya’s hooked. Hooked, oh yes! — And Yohji’s got two sheets of inked-up mulberry paper in his pocket to prove it. 

Whether his prickly teammate realizes this is quite another matter. He had forgotten about those strange calligraphy meditations until he went to change his clothes for the mission. Curious, he’d pulled them out and a blast of energy — giddy, joyful, astounded — almost flattened him when he realized what Aya had inadvertently hidden within them. 

He doesn’t have to say anything about this either, or wave these talismans under their creator’s nose like some sort of trophy. That would simply remind Aya that he doesn’t want to be attracted to Yohji and he would walk away. Run, actually. Yohji’s happy, instead, to spread material from the kick-pleat of his coat across the crenellated steel of the fire escape so his protegé will sit and keep him company for awhile.

Aya glances down at the makeshift mat, looks back at Yohji and sniffs, “I’m not a girl.”

“Not that it makes any difference, but that’s for damned sure.” 

The best thing, Yohji admits in a rare moment of self-analysis, would be to release any expectations. He can hope that Aya reacts according to his natural inclinations, even though that’s unlikely. Aya is all about shoving, pounding and pummeling down what comes naturally until it supernovas from forced containment. Yohji stops and scratches his head. It would make for a hell of an amazing supernova.

Right now, colour and heat are rising under the intensity of Yohji’s gaze. Aya is uncertain of how to respond. 

Yohji makes it easy for him, with the soft voice one uses to gentle skittish animals and inexperienced dates. “It’s too cold out here tonight, ’specially for what you’re wearing. You’re welcome to sit beside me and stay warm while we chat, or go back inside and I’ll join you in a few. Whatever you want.”

Unexpectedly, Aya joins him. Yohji opens his coat and wraps an arm around his shoulder, keeping the energy of it light and filial, about companionship, not seduction. The coat doesn’t stretch very far, but it gives Aya access to the warmth against Yohji’s body, which is all too much cozier than the redhead had planned. He starts mustering to leave but Yohji’s expression stops him, safe, familiar, like this is where he’s supposed to be, in fact, the only place, the best place. Here, it is quiet and calm. Tender. Aya reconsiders and, molecule by molecule, releases his resistance, remembers kind words and gestures, forgets transgressions — some real, most imagined — and sinks into Yohji’s side. He has surprised himself and, coupled with shyness, this leaves him speechless. So he sits as the moment is made acute by their silence and shared understanding, and his heart slowly fills. 

As for Yohji, he doesn’t even feel like smoking anymore. For the first time in his adult life, he’s toying with the idea that he just might spend the rest of his days without taking another puff, or indulging in any other similar substances for that matter; every urge is that complete, every appetite that satisfied. The cigarette burns, undrawn, to its filter. After he flicks it away, he finally asks, “What was it you wanted to say?” 

Aya shakes his head slowly. When he finally speaks, his voice halts and starts fitfully as, ever cautious, ever tentative, he strives for the most suitable words, “I thought — I felt concerned that Ouka’s murder might’ve brought back Asuka.”

“That would be the pattern, wouldn’t it?” Yohji laughs. “Although between Omi and Ouka, Ken’s experience with Yuriko, and your sister, my personal drama suddenly seems pretty commonplace.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“No, I don’t. Let’s say, just for tonight, anxiety and misery have already picked my bones clean.”

“Good.” Aya mumbles. “You’ve got a comfortable skeleton.”

For the first time, Yohji notices how sleepy he looks. He starts to nod off, dropping his head against Yohji’s shoulder, and Yohji’s the exact opposite: charged, ready to play matador with speeding 16-wheelers on the freeway, to swing off skyscrapers connected only by his wire, to bust through Takatori’s steelplated office with his bare fists. He’s ridiculously invincible and all because Aya feels easy enough to let this inch of his guard down. 

It really is too cold, however, and much as he wants Aya to stay tucked next to him, much as he knows his companion will bolt if disturbed, Yohji knows this can’t continue.

“Hey!”

“Mm?”

“You’re shivering.”

“Mm.”

Yohji slides a hand under his chin and tilts it up so that they can look each other straight in the eyes. “I have a warm bed.”

Suddenly, Aya’s wide awake, “Oh.”

And he’s backpeddling, reflexively, “I don’t want--”

“I know, Aya. Nothing’s going to happen that you don’t want. I would love for you to join me, but you won’t be pressured. Ever.”

“Alright,” a spectacular shiver runs up Aya’s spine. He watches as Yohji tracks it. There doesn’t seem to be any reasonable justification for running away. “It’s just that I’ve never--”

“Me, neither.” 

“Yes, well,” Aya rises to his feet, slowly, reticently. “I suppose I’d better go,” he says, scrambling back through the window with a glance over his shoulder which skirts Yohji’s and makes him think so much of regret and lines that may be blurred but never crossed, that he follows without hesitation. 

Before Aya manages to reach the door, Yohji has his hands on his shoulders, spins him into his arms, crushes lips against lips, and presses the long lines of his body strong and solid against the lean, compact muscles of the swordfighter, almost bending him backwards through the sheer power of height alone. When Aya’s mouth opens in protest, the tip of Yohji’s tongue slips in and starts to caress the inside of his mouth, warm and steady.  
Yohji feels the resistance fade, but won’t let up because he knows this person too well; it’s a feint. Release him too soon and he’ll find himself on the wrong end of something painful. Only when it becomes a struggle for breath does he pull away —completely away, staggering backward until the bed presses against his knees and he sinks down, panting, dizzy with his own audacity, the bed swaying under him like a swing. He is gratified to see that Aya is unsteady on his feet too, even if he wipes his mouth and glares, all fury.

“I couldn’t let you go without a taste of what you’re turning down,” Yohji explains. He threads fingers through his hair, one leg outstretched, one ankle tucked under his bed. His eyes are heavy-lidded, smoky, wanton. On anyone else, this would appear contrived and calculating. On Yohji, it’s real, his body reacting naturally to the sensations flowing through it.

“Yohji!” Aya growls.

 

_Here, it comes!_

 

Yohji watches his teammate lunge, braces for the impact of kicks and punches, the freefall of rage, expecting to be beaten within an inch of his life. 

It doesn’t happen. Aya plants one hand in the centre of his chest, driving him backward onto the mattress. Yohji has strung up full-grown men at the end of his wire, played them like deep-sea fish, like marlin and manta rays, with the power of his wrist and arms, but his strength is nothing compared to the power running through his teammate. It doesn’t help that he’s already breathless and inclined to surrender. 

“You have no restraint,” Aya hisses in his ear.

“And you--” Yohji agrees, “you have far too much,”

“Don’t you forget it!” Yohji’s boots, coat, pants sail into the corner of the room as Aya methodically starts to peel them off. 

There is a moment where he gets off the bed, wanders over to Yohji’s gym bag, and rummages through it. He finds what he’s looking for, the training straps they use for stretching and flexibility exercises, soft narrow strips of dense interwoven cotton, almost impossible to break. 

A tremor of mingled excitement and fear sparks through Yohji. Aya might vaunt his self-control, but it is his lack of it which so often leads Weiss into peril, and where he lashes out at friends and foes alike, spontaneous combustion personified. While this may be understandable considering what Takatori did to his family, the pit of Yohji’s stomach plummets. How foolish was it to place his wellbeing into such volatile safekeeping? Usually he’s smarter than this. Okay, maybe not lately, but was he so desperate for affection? _Any_ affection, whether sincere or not? 

_Apparently so,_ Yohji realizes as Aya captures his wrists and weaves the straps in alternating figure-eights around them. When Aya pulls him up to the headboard and threads the strips over and around the sturdy wooden slats of the headboard and in between those already looped around Yohji’s wrists, it is clear that he won’t be able to tear himself free by force either. He can’t wriggle his hands out of these bonds, and the more he tries, the tighter they cinch. He has to stop before the circulation to his hands cuts off completely. And, oh! — He is electrified by Aya’s dominance, excitement sizzling through every vein, every blood vessel. Was he that desperate? Apparently _always_ so. 

“Aya,” his voice quakes. 

“Sshh,” Aya hushes and claims Yohji’s mouth in a tender kiss. It starts off soft and soothing, his moistened lips pressing, kneading, sucking, then deepens and grows more forceful as Aya’s tongue swirls in firm sweeps around his. The kiss seems to last forever, all the nerve endings in Yohji’s mouth sparking and firing beneath those slow, steady strokes. 

Although his mind is completely immersed in sensation, the soft moans, deep breaths and gasps, there is a moment of expansion where it also encompasses the sub-bass noises of the city in its quietest hour; a faint hint of sandalwood and lemon grass mixed with the smell of Aya’s skin, their arousals, traces of cologne left from the day’s grooming ritual, and from air flowing in through the window, whiffs of ozone ignited by dust particles playing against dew. It is as though his senses have been blown out across the entire city and enfolded it. 

Somehow, a stray thought meanders into this overload, the realization that, although he began this seduction, Aya was going to finish it. He starts to struggle. Those lips move against his, slow, powerful, full of imperative, and his mind implodes, blanks out again. 

By the time Aya pulls away, Yohji’s heart feels like its going to jump out of his chest and he’s so engorged, so aching for completion that he can’t help but writhe amongst the down comforters. He cannot believe that anyone has the power to bring him to this state with merely a kiss, almost as though he hasn’t had sex or touched himself for weeks.

Aya uses the momentary lapse of concentration to roll him onto his knees. Warm hands slide around his back to the front of his torso and down. 

“’Ey? What are you doing? Ah, no, Aya! Don’t put your hands there. I’m too close.”

Aya’s fingers spread him wide so that cold air, then hot breath rushed across the surface of his skin. Then a tongue laps, causing the blond assassin to buck once. “No, Aya! Please, don’t. I--”

His protestations are cut short when long lean fingers curl around him and slowly squeeze, and he loses his ability to speak with any coherence. Random, nonsensical words rush out in frantic whispers, “Help, please… gods, no! … can’t breathe … aches … have to, good … Stop! … madness, heart feels … hurry! …Ah, fuck, ow, Aya!”

Just as everything contracts to a point of physical anguish, Aya stops, pulls away. Yohji reels in the shock of cold air which rushes in where the touches have withdrawn. He wasn’t even aware that Aya had been stretching him until he feels the lubricated fingers pull away. His throat feels constricted, choked with need, with the desire for release. Before he can collapse against the bed, and finish himself off by rubbing against the friction of the covers, Aya rolls him onto his back, calms him with slow strokes down the length of his torso, regards him thoughtfully.

“My real name is Ran,” he finally says.

Yohji’s eyes widen. Ay-Ran slides up alongside him until his face is as close to Yohji’s as he can get without their sight blurring. He runs a hand down a length of supple thigh. The touch sends off shockwaves of lust, reducing Yohji’s body to immobility. He feels the hands lift his knees, feels them hooked over Aya’s shoulders.

The moment Ran enters, he blacks out with the power of the orgasm that rushes through him.

 

Wet, salty lines write secrets across Yohji’s skin, dissolve along his hairline under the nape of his neck. He can’t tell if they’re tears or drops of sweat. Fever seems to shake his body. The unintentional cries and sobs sound so distant and detached, they might as well be breaking from someone else’s throat. 

Only after Aya has seated himself firmly and unequivocally, does he release his partner’s bonds. Now Yohji’s fingers scrabble for purchase around the hard, muscular back above him, contracting at the sensations which ripple outward from his hips, which send shocks of electricity coursing through all his nerves. He tries to calm the shudders that wrack his hips, but his body will not cooperate, tightening further every time Aya slips deeper into him.

Aya’s body is the masterpiece of the swordfighter’s will, taut, lean and supple, pounding between Yohji’s splayed legs with a speed and power that would’ve propelled the slighter man over the edge of the bed if there weren’t a headboard to pile up against instead. The faintest shimmer of moisture plays across Aya’s skin like satin, reflecting the nighttime city lights which had flood through the windows. A barely detectable tremble flickers through his muscles with each thrust, the only hint of passion beyond the physical response of his erection and force of his penetration. His face is sphinx-like, a cypher.

Yohji had started off by resisting his attraction to Aya, then drowning himself in excess and avoidance when he feared it wasn’t reciprocated; now that it has arrived, now that it is here and now, full and powerful, it hurts. Too much. Too fast. Yohji’s voice rises even further as he grows unhinged, until a sharp keen bursts from his throat.  
Aya immediately stops and pulls out. The sudden emptiness is a shockwave, icy and hostile. He feels himself drawn down away from the headboard.

“I need you to relax, to open yourself more to me,” the lips were next to his ear, murmuring words in his quiet, composed voice between long, slow exhales of breath. This supreme composure and control drives Yohji wild with shame. “Is this possible?”

Strangled gasps of protest spill from his lips and he involuntarily mimics the movements he desires from Aya, thrusting against the firm, unyielding muscles of his abdomen, willing him to move. 

“Ah-ah-Aya, why have you stopped?” Yohji pants, unaware even of the meaning in his words, so desperately does he need the man to move inside him once more. The room seems to roll around him. 

Aya’s powerful hands grip his hips, force them to remain still, in turn forcing Yohji’s whirling mind to still. His muscles contract and release involuntarily, as though reaching for the heat and solidity to fill him again. “Didn’t you—don’t you want this?”

The look which Aya sends him is of pure amazement and disbelief, which is when Yohji remembers how this began. His face flushes with heat and embarrassment. He tears his eyes away, but Aya leans down and places a tender kiss on his lips. For a minute or two, he does nothing but embrace the man beneath him, listening to the delightful moans and sighs of his captive, while sweeping his tongue across Yohji’s open lips, moistening them, softening them, feeling them grow more plump and wet. Then Yohji captures his tongue and starts to suck upon it, rolling it against his and they explore each others mouths, forgetting the acute sensitivity of their groins until the trembling stiffness leaves Yohji’s legs, and Aya releases his mouth with a low, deep, “Aaaah.”

“I want to enjoy you some more.” His voice holds an undercurrent of mirth as though ready to laugh at Yohji’s distress. 

“No,” Yohji begins to struggle again. This was too cruel of Aya, to pin him down and hold him still, after he has already surrendered. The foreplay had seemed unrelenting. Suddenly, realization manages to penetrate the fog in his head. He pauses in disbelief and then, amusement. He starts to chuckle, “You mean you were just about ready to--”

Aya’s lips twist as he suppresses a smile. 

“Shit, how long has it been since you last had sex?”

“You really want to talk about this right now?” Aya starts to stroke him. 

Yohji bucks his head back and arches his spine, cursing, only half aware that he says these words aloud. 

 

He wakes up with a start at the unfamiliar sound of birdsong. The air is fresh and sharp, but he doesn’t feel cold, not with his body coiled around Aya’s sleeping form, so warm and solid. He forgets how many times they did it; in how many different ways his body was stretched, turned, and used; or how often the tremors of pleasure rushed through him in release. 

He can tell there is soreness, that his muscles are going to feel stiff and uncooperative, but there is also another wholly unfamiliar energy which dissipates and neutralizes all the aches and humiliations, renders them insignificant and unable to impede him. It is an indescribable sort of energy, encompassing so many aspects, like peace, and stillness, and absolution. It leaves him feeling bright, charged and ready to go, yet completely poised and tranquil at the same time. There is so much fullness, it seems to pour out of him, yet it is completely empty and nothing at the same time. His mind can’t wrap itself around so much contradiction. All he can do is experience it.

Aya stirs within his arms, as though called back into the waking world by this quiet tumult. He turns around fully and stares into Yohji’s eyes. They gaze, saying nothing, thinking nothing, just feeling and experiencing each other in silence. 

“Yohji,” Aya finally speaks, his voice sleepy, a question lingering in the aftermath.

“Ay-Ran?” Yohji stumbles, “which name do you prefer?”

“Aya is fine.”

“What would you like? Anything — anything you want.”

The request is whispered, “Can you take me this time?”

 

This type of sex is completely different than with female partners, and it doesn’t have to do with the degree of love, because it’s different even from sex with beloved females with names and faces, partners like Asuka. For an instant, while disassociating from his body to hold back the orgasm long enough to let Aya reach his, Yohji tries to figure out how the two experiences could so similar yet so completely unalike, but it doesn’t seem to be something that his mind can tackle. It is lovely to feel Aya writhe under him just as he did beneath Aya, the contractions and releases of the muscles around him creating the most incredible intoxication. The quiet sounds that his lover makes and the unguarded expressions which flash across his face are gratifying beyond belief. Yet these are all things which Yohji has felt during sex with women. 

If anything, instead of feeling more feminine for having assumed the female role most of the night, Yohji feels more masculine, more … male, even though he can’t really define what that means. He’s just about to put some actual mental effort into solving this riddle when Aya’s muscles ripple and he loses all ability to think. Afterward, as he lies panting and cooling off in Aya’s embrace, letting his thoughts off the rein, he wonders why he even spent time wondering about it. 

 

“Mind control.”

After Manx drives Omi home from the hospital, this is what Yohji offers at their debriefing. The mission room looks like an office with papers, maps and calendars pinned everywhere as they try to find out where and when their various paths first crossed Eszett, and if it was solely in conjunction with being obstacles to Takatori.

Aya stands behind the couch, his arms crossed in his usual passive role, absorbing everything, offering nothing unless it can be stated with absolute certainty.

“Yes, Yotan, we already got that,” Ken’s tone is full of condescension. “But how? What are they using?”  
Omi nods his agreement with Ken. “And how did they manage to overcome our security so easily in order to put their mind-control technology or substances into effect?”

Yohji cannot believe how quickly this kid recovers. The only signs of his grief and recent terror are the dark circles under his eyes. He is as cool and collected as someone three or four times his age. The realization helps put Yohji’s irritation over Ken into perspective. 

“See, this is the problem,” he says. “You guys are still stuck on the idea that they need something, some kind of technique or drug, like hypnosis or certain medications to control us. The point is they don’t. They’re past that.”

“What are you saying?” Omi asks.

“Can I even express this more clearly? Let’s see: they already did whatever it took — ingested the drugs, cloned the babies, injected the nanites, underwent the microsurgery, whatever was required, ages ago — too long ago for us to do anything about it now. It’s happened. A done deal. Nothing we can do. Now, we could surmise from the little you’ve managed to dig up, Ken, that it all happened scientifically, through all those different drugs and experiments and medical procedures they advertised — doesn’t matter. The end result is these scary psychos and sociopaths with their super-spooky magic powers. That’s what we’ve got to deal with, not how they got that way.”

The room is dead silent. It’s a black hole of silence as the individual members of Weiss process the realization that, first of all, Yohji’s right, and, secondly, that it is Yohji who is right. If they can just absorb this and move past dismissing the seriousness of what he says based on the habitual assumption that he’s clueless, Yohji figures he’s won the trifecta. He likes looking good in front of Aya.

As though he’s been invoked, Aya stirs. “How do we fight them then?”

For a second, Yohji wishes he could light up, give his fingers and lips something to do while he dwells on the problem. 

“I don’t know that we can,” he admits. 

“So we just give up?” The implication affronts Ken. He doesn’t seem to realize that he’s misunderstood Yohji, that he’s almost shouting, and that there is no need to overreact.

“I never said so,” this time, Yohji is irritated. 

Omi bullies Ken into line the way he always does, with civility and another question, “Then what do you propose we do, Yohji?”

“Continue as we were, except with some awareness of what we’re up against. We’ve already I.D.’d three of them, the American, the orange-haired mindreader--”

“Schuldig,” Aya interrupted.

“Sorry?” Yohji tries to ignore the sound of Omi’s cellphone which has suddenly started to ring.

“His name’s Schuldig.”

“Right, and that albino knife-fighter. So now that we know about these guys, we watch out for them and--”  
“Hang on a second, Yohji,” Omi waves his hands to catch their attention. “There’s something on the news which concerns us directly. Can you turn on the television, Ken?”

The news is full of images reported of a bomb going off in the middle of a crowded shopping centre. There are injuries and casualties. A woman sobs about the cruelty of people who could murder her tiny daughter so heartlessly. Then the reporter drops another bomb, one which explodes for all of them personally. 

“A terrorist group called ‘Weiss’ has claimed responsibility for this afternoon’s attack.”

“Or we could just lay low and wait until Persia decides to tell us what the fuck is going on and what we’re supposed to do about it,” Yohji finishes his sentence into their shattered suspense.

 

He should’ve known it was too good to last, Yohji’s chest spasms as Aya disappears into his own suite, closing the door behind him. He supposes it’s karmic retribution for all the partners he’s dumped. After cultivating so much notoriety during their time together, Aya can’t possibly think he’s stable or faithful enough to desire one person alone, even if that’s what he truly wants. 

He should’ve known that the obstacles would pile on too soon. Takatori, his creepy sons, Ezsett, and now these strange characters with their mental superpowers, there’s no respite. The need to stay focused is always there.  
Before he even makes it to his suite, Yohji feels like the walls are closing in and his own bed taunts him, daring him to lie in those sheets and crawl back out half-alive with the memory of what happened between them. 

He almost jumps when a powerful arm circles his waist, and warmth and a deep voice rumble and press against his back. “You weren’t thinking of going anywhere, were you?” 

The golden waves of hair tumble as he sinks back into the embrace. Silky hair tickles his collarbone where Aya nuzzles against it. “Am I going to have to keep tying you up like a stray dog to keep you from wandering around at night?”

“Whatever it takes, Aya, whatever you need.” There it is: the thing that makes everything worthwhile, that absolution, that saving grace. A smile scrolls across Yohji’s lips, “You’re in control.”

_— fin —_


End file.
